Washington (CNN) – In the latest round of culture wars over contraception and religious liberty, most Americans would probably identify places like the White House and Congress as key battlefields. But another nearby locale has emerged as a national platform for such skirmishes: the stately campus of Georgetown University, the country's oldest Roman Catholic college.

On Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, a Catholic, will speak at a relatively low-profile graduation ceremony for one of Georgetown's individual schools, an appearance that has attracted criticism from the Catholic archdiocese of Washington.

Washington (CNN) – Just as it confronts fallout with some religious communities over President Barack Obama’s newly expressed support for same-sex marriage, the Obama re-election campaign is hiring a religious outreach director, an activist close to the campaign said Monday.

Michael Wear, who currently serves as executive assistant to the executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, will join the Obama campaign in Chicago as Faith Vote Director, according to James Salt, a Catholic activist who is close to the Obama campaign and White House.

(CNN) - After the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. first gained wide public recognition in the mid-1950s, he made a special request to evangelist Billy Graham.

King was poised to join Graham on one of his barnstorming crusades, but he would do so only on one condition. He asked Graham to publicly speak out against segregation, a request Graham declined, says San Diego State University historian Edward Blum.

(CNN) - Apparent White House division over gay marriage – with Vice President Joe Biden saying Sunday that he is “absolutely comfortable” with the idea, going further than President Obama has on the issue – mirrors a nation that is evenly divided on the matter. Recent polls show that about half of Americans favor legalized gay marriage, while half oppose it, with support for the idea gaining significant ground over the past 15 years.

Pew’s latest polling on the issue, conducted late last year, found that 46% of Americans support favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally, while 44% are opposed. Support for gay civil unions is substantially higher, with a clear majority of Americans supporting such arrangements.

(CNN) – Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has written a very powerful new book on the Holocaust and her Jewish heritage. She didn’t know her parents were Jewish until she was 59 years old and about to become President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State.

“I had no idea that my family heritage was Jewish or that more than twenty of my relatives had died in the Holocaust,” she writes in “Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948.”

(CNN) – Famed pastor Joel Osteen reiterated his position that Mitt Romney is a Christian on Tuesday, saying as long as the likely GOP presidential nominee believes that Jesus is the Son of God then he subscribes to the Christian faith.

"When I hear Mitt Romney say that he believes that Jesus is the Son of God–that he's the Christ, raised from the dead, that he's his Savior–that's good enough for me," Osteen said in an interview to air on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer."FULL POST

Brandon, Mississippi (CNN) - Newt Gingrich opened up about seeking God's forgiveness during an evening Sunday service in Mississippi.

"There were things in my life that I have been very public about saying were, in fact, well short of the glory of God, and I had to go to God to seek forgiveness," Gingrich said at First Baptist Church in Brandon.

(CNN) - The Rev. Franklin Graham on Tuesday apologized for publicly raising questions about President Barack Obama’s Christian faith, saying “I regret any comments I have ever made which may have cast any doubt on the personal faith of our president, Mr. Obama.”

The statement from Graham came in response to a letter from faith leaders associated with the NAACP that said Graham’s statements “have enormous negative effects for America and are especially harmful to the Christian witness.”

Lansing, Michigan (CNN) – A Michigan pastor who introduced Rick Santorum at a Monday campaign event in Lansing claimed that Mitt Romney is not a Christian and said Santorum is the one Republican candidate who can awaken "the sleeping giant" of Christianity.

Kent Clark, the CEO of Grace Centers of Hope, a faith-based homeless outreach facility in Pontiac, warmed up the pro-Santorum audience by calling the former Pennsylvania senator "a man who believes in a creator rather than we being the accidental creation of gas and dust."FULL POST